Approaching end of the year experts have two options to choose. The first and a safer one is to summarize past twelve months. The second, more dangerous but also more exciting is to predict what will happen next year. At K-message we find the latter option much more useful and interesting. Please enjoy our prediction of the Top 5 pharma marketing trends of 2014 below.

For years digital marketing was treated as a fifth wheel in pharma business. Whatever we say, the truth is that those organizations are made of sales force. And digital marketing for sales force was just another marketing gimmick that does not add value but a workload and cost.

However, during past few years this traditional sales force thinking was challenged. Payers pressure forced companies to reduce ranks of sales representatives. Regulatory decisions have limited possibility of sales reps to meet HCPs. The result is that sales rep cannot meet his Client often enough to detail the product and maintain relationship in the same time.

Digital came to help with e-detailing and web-based self-detail solutions.CRM software supports reps with data that allow reps to have a meaningful conversation with HCPs they barely know. Combining detailing during visits with digital tactics and good old direct marketing is our new buzz word: a Multi Channel Marketing (MCM).

This Multi Channel Marketing approach allows even better results with something Pharma marketers call Closed Loop Marketing (CLM). What does it mean? It is a feedback loop that feeds every next action with the information gathered in previous touch points.

For example: If doctor X has logged in to the website of the product or disease area and searched for particular information (be it safety data or Mode of Action), his activity is logged in the system. Sales who will prepare for the meeting will get his eDetailing story focused on the topics that were of interest of doctor X during his journey on the website. eDetailing application also logs data about activity of the doctor X. It will note which parts were opened longer, which multimedia were presented, what answers doctor X gave to the quizzes embedded in the story.

Those data combined may be used to shape the content of personalized newsletter send to the doctor X as the follow-up for the visit. When doctor X clicks on the link and goes to the self-detailing website his activities will feed any next action that company can offer (be it web conference or CME online course assignment proposal).

The concept is easy to describe, but very hard to achieve. Big Pharma usually has many different tools for each activity used by different business units at the same time. The data gathered across different channels are not only not standardized, but often they are not gathered at all.

Our prediction is that 2014 will be the year of integration of digital with other channels. Multi Channel Marketing campaigns, made better or worse will become a standard approach. Digital channels will become a core of those campaigns as they offer the most advanced and effortless data collection capabilities. When integration is done, more mature organization will start to play with Big Data, looking for the behavioral patterns, segmentation and optimized content.

2. Virtual conferences

Medical conferences are vital for pharma business. Unfortunately the cost of attending is too high for participants, and regulations are limiting possibilities of the industry to sponsor the attendance. The emerging trend is to compliment (if not replace) physical meetings with a digital, virtual presence.

Virtual conferences have many advantages that may not be obvious. They are cheap to organize, free to attend, accessible worldwide, and they do not have to be limited in time. Additionally virtual conference attendee can go to all the sessions one after another, pause and replay. While in real time of the event, there is possibility to network and perform Q and A sessions. If the event is replayed there is also possibility to maintain asynchronous communication via discussion boards or e-mail lists. Virtual event can be live for months and create a community around.

Webcasting Virtual Conference – Source: ON24

There are still some regulatory compliance objections (ie. no discussion on off-label, still researched use can be broadcasted and replayed outside of the physical event timeframe). There is still a group of attendees that strongly prefer physical meetings due to networking opportunities and informal chats. Technical solutions are not perfect and most of 3D meeting environments look like a joke in comparison with what consumer market offers for massive multiplayer online games.

Still, virtual conferences will become a common digital marketing tactic for pharma marketing in 2013. We recommend an exhaustive presentation on virtual conferences by Len Starnes below.

The medical conference is dead, long live the medical conferencefrom Len Starnes

3. Embracing Social Media

It has to come some day: Pharma in Social Media. To be honest this trend is on the list since 2010 at least. Anyway, the time has come we believe. There are many factors that make 2014 a year when pharma should finally embrace social media.

The major one is coming from the unexpected corner. Industry was long hesitant to enter social media space due to the drug safety consideration. If you participate in Social Media it means you need to actively monitor it against any adverse events reports. The standard practice was however, to assume that if pharma is not listening it cannot be obliged to report. On the other hand such assumption may be wrong, so as soon as there is a tweet that meets all four conditions, pharma company will be probably considered obliged to find it and report. Thus, we believe that drug safety teams should push their organizations towards monitoring of social media.

Reminder: information needed for valid Adverse Event

An identifiable patient

An identifiable reporter

A suspect drug or biological product

An adverse experience or fatal outcome suspected to be due to the suspect drug or biological product.

Another change that may increase Social Media priority on digital pharma marketing tactics list is Google’s algorithm. Social signals are more important than backlinks and Google+ or YouTube presence is a shortcut to the first page on Google Search results. If pharma wants to have their web presence visible, especially on the US market where DTC marketing is allowed, Social Media is a must have.

Third factor to consider is, well, social. The generational change in attitude towards social media affects HCPs too. They are active in Social Media, and they will talk about industry in this space regardless of pharma marketing presence there. At K-message we believe that big platforms, and especially Google+ will continue to grow in 2014 at the cost of closed niche communities like Sermo or Doctors.net.uk. To be efficient Pharma marketing should listen to the conversation, and engage whenever appropriate. Influencers of 2014 are in the social web, not in the conference room.

4. Mobile apps decline, raise of the mobile web.

This trend is not limited to pharma marketing. Mobile applications are really dead end for marketers in 2014. Due to the war of ecosystems and difference in mobile usage habits between regions and countries it is just not viable to create mobile applications. To reach your target audience you need to prepare few versions customized per OS, data usage etc. Very often such costly effort is done only to find out that the content not compliant week after launch and cannot be updated.

QRcode – K-message.com

Still, mobile is on the rise, and you will definitely see John Doerr’s abbreviation “SoLoMo” (Social, Local, Mobile) on some slides in 2014. The answer is not the app but the mobile web. The content pharma marketing has to create should work on the small screen from the beginning. Every new website should be designed starting from mobile and tablet experience or at least have a mobile version available. And “mobile” does not mean that it fits the small screen. It is about making the content fit for mobile experience.

5. More visual content marketing

Pretty Pinterest (Photo credit: mkhmarketing)

This fifth (although probably not the last trend you will see in pharma marketing 2014) trend is directly connected to Social and Mobile trends we discussed above. Content is the king for marketers in pharma for years, but in the age of social and mobile it cannot be text-only content.

On small screens and in social space image is worth more than thousands words. We will see videos, interactive infographics, images and animations. YouTube, Slideshare, Instagram, Pinterest. This is the content that is accessible on mobile, but also shared on social platforms. Of course pharma marketing cannot skip the text, but even for scientific, medical information there is a way to visualise it.

Learn from the best B2B brands using social. Our B2B social media strategy report shows how successful brands are engaging on social. Download here.

Anna Dunmeyer's insight:

This report from TrackMaven gives us insight into B2B social media across 17 different industries including pharma, medical and biotech. For pharma, LinkedIn provides the largest audiences with Twitter as a distant second. However, Instagram was rated as the most effective social media channel for the industry.

While the healthcare industry is in its most transformative period, marketing approaches are evolving in fits and starts. But that may not be a bad thing.

Anna Dunmeyer's insight:

In the wake of the digital revolution, how are pharma marketers adjusting their strategic and tactical approaches? They are shifting their marketing budgets towards digital programs and anything that engages the payer community. This survey dives into a more detailed look at industry spending in this new landscape.

If your marketing approach is not yielding the desired results, perhaps it's time to reform your pharmaceutical marketing strategies. Here are some tips.

Anna Dunmeyer's insight:

Pharma marketers should begin to pay attention to certain things that others are doing both inside and outside the industry on digital channels. Pharmaceutical marketing typically lags behind other industries and reform is needed to keep up.

A recent report from the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions highlights third-party health content providers' successful strategy for engaging physicians in an increasingly digital world, along with ideas for how pharma can increase its social media presence with docs.

Anna Dunmeyer's insight:

The biopharma industry is filled with scientific creativity and future-forward, cutting-edge innovation. Yet, it lags every other major industry in digital advertising, and has very little social media engagement with physicians, their core audience. This is a gigantic missed opportunity, as physicians are massively engaged with third-party health content providers.

Digital asset management isn’t a new concept, but it is emerging as a growth area in enterprise IT, with Forrester Research predicting that 23 per cent of firms

Anna Dunmeyer's insight:

Digital Asset Management isn't a new concept, but more and more firms are looking in investing in a DAM system. A DAM system can solve the challenge of keeping track of and organizing all of your organization's digital assets. Need help convincing others of the value? Here are five tips to help navigate you towards achieving results end results that are sure to impress.

The FTC issued new guidelines for social media marketing that affect pharma heres what you need to know

Anna Dunmeyer's insight:

The latest FTC guidelines focus primarily on testimonials and endorsements. The FTC hopes to ensure that consumers can clearly tell the difference between an honest third-party review and a paid endorsements. What does this mean for pharma?

The industry moves so quickly, that it's hard to look at past data and have it be relevant. Companies should think about establishing a future marketing framework of role profiles, skills and competencies to address future talent gaps, not past performance.

A quick scan of pharma industry articles and blogs often get me excited with all the chatter of new app features, hot new social communities offering patients deeper ways to connect, or the promise of robust and actionable data we can incorporate from all of our quantified-self gadgets. With all that vigor and excitement we strive each day to deliver the best thinking for our client, embracing all these elements as we counsel and guide strategy. But all too often I see brand managers holding back, taking the wait-and-see approach, and missing opportunities to transform their category.

Anna Dunmeyer's insight:

With all of the exciting innovation happening within the pharma industry, it's frustrating to see brand managers holding back to wait and see what happens before they take the leap within their industry. So, what exactly is holding us back in pharma marketing?

There are many myths in pharma digital marketing that can hold back the development of a common view of goals and objectives. Here's a list of the fifteen most common myths that need to be demolished for good.

Librarian Adam Hess offers good advice for budding DAM managers: Forget what you see and form your own vision for digital asset management. Part of the

Anna Dunmeyer's insight:

To be successful with DAM, you need to be embedded in the culture and have awareness of what the values and trends are. Being able to incorporate this information into the management of your system will ultimately result in success.

This is the story of two DAM systems at two different companies. The companies shared many similarities. In both cases, the digital asset management system was relegated a home with the design team, where the managers understood the need for a searchable collection of assets that could be reused at significant cost and time savings.

Anna Dunmeyer's insight:

Implementing a digital asset management system is a commitment within a company. These tips highlight the important considerations companies should take when looking to implement a DAM system.

No matter what or who your audience is, it is essential to adapt your social media activity to engage with your audience on their terms. This is clear through the increase in mobile devices is causing marketers and the FDA to face a new set of marketing technology challenges.

Although social media is nearly ubiquitous at this point, pharmaceutical firms still struggle to varying degrees with how to use social media while complying with rules and regulations that govern communications with the public, consumer and patient.

Anna Dunmeyer's insight:

Pharma firms might be beginning to get a grip on this digital revolution, but many still struggle to varying degrees with how to use social media while maintaining compliance. This article focuses on how social media is an ideal channel for pharma and device firms to reach their customers.

The following is a guest post by Mayur Gupta, a pioneering chief marketing technologist and author of the Inspire Martech blog, who is now a senior vice president and head of digital at HealthGrades. Mayur is also on the board of advisors for the MarTech conference, and he will be one of our featured speakers …

Anna Dunmeyer's insight:

How will new marketing technologies transform healthcare? It's clear the future will certainly not be the same. The consumer has learned to push back and "own" their health, meaning healthcare must quickly become much more patient-centric.

One of the biggest ways the changing digital health landscape will affect the pharma industry is that pharma companies increasingly stand to lose control over their own stories, according to a new report from McKinsey & Company, who spoke to 20 thought leaders in various pharma-adjacent sectors.

Anna Dunmeyer's insight:

Drug data will eventually become available in ways that pharma companies are unable to control, so they will need to find ways to become more transparent in order to keep up with the digital health landscape.

Examining the advantages for brand teams in leveraging independent agencies in their campaigns.

Anna Dunmeyer's insight:

New risks for healthcare and marketing appear for pharma brand leaders as they consolidate their full suite of advertising services. In an effort to minimize risks, many leaders are now embracing a new agency service model called "prosolidation" which adds independent agencies into the mix, breaking the trend of agency consolidation.

Think there's not much to learn from CPG's? Think again! There's a lot pharma can learn from CPG's despite budget and restriction differences. Here are some of the biggest things pharma can learn from CPG marketing.

Pharmafile.com is a leading portal for the pharmaceutical industry, providing industry professionals with pharma news, jobs, events, and service company listings.

Anna Dunmeyer's insight:

Some interesting findings on pharma companies moving away from using external agencies for their digital marketing. The study finds that 27% of marketers said their brands – including pharma companies and others – don't work with outside agencies for digital marketing, whereas 13% said they used in-house teams in 2014. Some 28% said they now do all digital marketing in-house, with 14% planning to decrease marketing spending with digital agencies this year.

In a world that operates across a digital platform, it’s important for today’s pharma and medical device companies to integrate digital marketing into their business plan.

One, if not the most, important aspect of digital marketing is social media. Pharma companies need to leverage social media for one prominent reason: that’s where patients and consumers are.

RELATED TOPIC: Which pharma companies are succeeding in the social media space?

When social media first began to be discussed by health care professionals back in 2009, clarification from the FDA on proper use of social channels for pharmaceutical marketing was minimal. Driven by the rise of mobile devices and the increasing reliance of the Internet for medical information, the FDA has since updated its guidelines for using social media platforms and released its FDA Draft Guidance for Internet/Social Media Platforms with Character Space Limitations last year.

Because more patients, and health care professionals alike, are relying on social and mobile platforms to solve health care challenges than ever before, pharmaceutical marketers need to adapt to this change in media consumption and engage with their audiences under these terms.

Cadient’s Gene Y. Miller shares the following four tips to striking a balance between an effective marketing campaign that also includes appropriate safety and risk disclosures.

1. Say a lot in a few words.

Economize the amount of space you have by using abbreviation, punctuation marks and symbols (such as “&”).

2. Include primary and secondary links.

Primary links should direct to a site that provides more complete information about risk, while a secondary link can be included for additional information.

RELATED TOPIC: How social media is shaping modern health care

3. Consider the platform.

Twitter is not the right forum for every pharma marketing message. If the proper risk/benefit balance cannot be achieved in the constraints of Twitter, or any other social media forum, Miller says that perhaps that platform should not be used for that particular message.

4. Keep the FDA in mind.

When composing your message, keep it short and sweet. Include the benefit, communicate the risk and use the full FDA-approved name.

RELATED TOPIC: Top 5 digital health giants you should be watching

With the average number of tweets by pharma companies increasing by 530 percent since 2013, according to Ogilvy Healthworld, and Twitter followers in return increasing by nearly 300 percent, it comes as no surprise that more companies are seeing the value of incorporating social media into their digital marketing strategies.

Let's connect!

Read the latest edition of Healthcare Global magazine!

[SOURCE: Pharma Compliance Monitor]

Anna Dunmeyer's insight:

We've all become accustomed to living and operating our lives across digital platforms. For pharma and medical device companies, this means it's crucial to integrate digital marketing into their business plans. Here are four great tips to conduct a successful digital marketing pharma campaign.

Pharma marketers are losing out on valuable information from their users. Social listening is often an untapped resource for pharma. Overlooking conversations on social sites means losing out on useful insights and the ability to really get into users heads.

This month I'll be presenting some of Creation Healthcare's latest research on UK healthcare professionals' use of social media, at the King's Fund Digital Health and Care Congress. I greatly admire t...

Anna Dunmeyer's insight:

This impressive UK study shows how healthcare professionals are using social media, the unique practices these individuals are using and what is resonating with consumers.

Patrick Michel from the Professional Services team explains how to manage stakeholders in your DAM project.

Anna Dunmeyer's insight:

A digital asset management strategy is only as successful as you make it. This means that management and leaders must be on board which may (or may not be) a challenging task. Here's some ways to get your stakeholders on board with a DAM.

An eye-opening look on how pharma companies have shifted their social media interactions in just over a year with their end users. Pharma companies are now using sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to spread information, help prevention and get consumer feedback. Again, showing how important it is for the life sciences industry to embrace social media.

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.